Cat and Mouse
by Alex Foster
Summary: Set in the show’s possible Exposed Future as seen in The Second Coming. During her training by Pinehearst, Claire is visited by the fugitive Elle four times over the years. Femslash warning.


Title: Cat and Mouse

Author: Alex Foster

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Category: General

Rating: R

Summary: Set in the show's possible Exposed Future as seen in The Second Coming. During her training by Pinehearst, Claire is visited by the fugitive Elle four times over the years. Femslash warning.

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by NBC. No money is being made and no infringement is intended.

…

...

_A war is like when it rains in New York and everybody crowds into doorways, ya know? And they all get chummy together. Perfect strangers. The only difference, of course, is in a war it's also raining on the other side of the street and the people who are chummy over there are trying to kill the people who are over here who are chums._

- Hawkeye Pierce

…

...

Subtlety, Claire thought as she fell backward through the plate glass window, had been lost. Shards of glass sliced through her skin as she tumbled end over end. Before hitting the ground she caught sight of Elle looking down from the shattered window frame, lightning crackling around her, and a decidedly smug look on her face.

The sudden impact and crunch of bones snapping before immediately reknitting kept her from being sure, but Claire would have sworn that Elle blew her a kiss as she ducked back inside the high rise.

Claire lay on her back for a moment, staring up at the night sky and thinking about the ten story fall Elle just gave her. They were zero and one now. She'd get her next time.

…

...

By the time she was nineteen years old Claire Bennet had already rounded up over two dozen enhanced humans (the latter word used liberally in some cases) for the camps, killed six serious threats to Pinehearst and the nation's interests, and watched as Peter sided against her.

In the community of specials, she was already gaining a reputation as one of the most deadly individuals in the world. She let her hair grow in dark and smiled when people feared her.

There were attempts on her life of course, the terrorists saw Pinehearst as their biggest threat and she was well on her way to becoming the firm's sharpest sword. All of the assassination attempts failed because the killers couldn't appreciate just how special her ability was.

That was a mistake she never made and it turned her into a good hunter.

The finer points of ability proliferation never interested her. She watched power and the desire for even more destroy the people she once loved. The world grew increasingly screwed up with the public disclosure of abilities. She only knew that some people couldn't be trusted with powers and for the betterment of all they needed rounding up...or, in extreme cases, elimination.

She was nothing if not daddy's little girl.

Her orders came from Pinehearst and from her other father in the White House.

Claire let them worry about the big details of running the world. She was just the muscle.

…

...

Her second encounter with Elle happened at a warehouse in Tokyo. All they knew was a rogue element was operating against their interests in Japan. A spy from Nakamura most likely. And Claire's orders were clear.

The lightning bolt hit her from behind and caused the radio on her belt—the only link to her team—to explode. Claire slid across the concrete floor and came to a rest underneath a network of copper pipes. She rolled onto her back and looked up at her attacker. "You?!"

Elle smiled and dropped to her haunches beside her. "Me."

Claire scrambled back, found her footing, and launched herself at the other girl. Elle twisted to the side and caught Claire's wrist as she passed. Wheeling around, Claire expected a surge of electricity to come from that touch—had already planned on how she could use the attack against her—but instead felt cold metal lock around her arm with a click.

Another clink sounded and Elle retreated as a wicked grin brightened her small face.

Claire reached for her but was yanked backward by the handcuffs securing her wrist to a copper pipe. Attempting to pull the pipe from the wall by sheer force of will, she strained against the small length of chain holding her back. She felt her shoulder shift and nearly dislocate.

"Ew," Elle said, watching her. "This isn't my first day on the job, cheerleader. Before you chew your arm off how about you take a time out and talk to me?"

Claire clenched her jaw and stopped the futile pulling. "Who are you working for and what do you want?"

Elle stepped closer, but remained just out of reach. "Not working for anyone but little old me." She paused and those psychotic blue eyes took all of Claire in. "So tell me, kitten, do you want to look after yourself now? Make yourself so hard and tough that nothing can ever hurt you?"

"I don't feel pain."

Sparks danced between Elle's fingers, but she didn't direct them at Claire. "There are lots of different kinds of pain. No one is immune to all of them, not even you. That can be the first lesson."

"Lesson? What are you talking about?"

"You want to survive? Want to not hurt anymore? Then these are the things you need to know to catch me and people like me."

Before Claire could react, Elle leaned in and planted a biting kiss on her mouth. She didn't feel the pain of Elle's teeth opening her bottom lip, just the ripping pressure, and the gush of warm blood. The other girl pulled back and flashed a smile stained with red.

She made a show of licking the blood from her lips. Surprised by the mad eroticism of such an act, Claire took a moment to register the weight of the object Elle had pressed into her hand. A knife. The blade polished spotless allowing Claire to see her mirror image looking back at her there.

"See you around, cheerleader. Next time leave the team at home and we'll have time for a longer dance." Elle started walking backward and blew her a kiss. "Oh, and you can keep the 'cuffs."

Claire looked at her hand still attached to the pipes and then back to the sharp knife. Elle was long gone by the time Daphne and Knox found Claire. The black man winced and Daphne looked ready to throw up when they saw the degloved remains in the restraints.

Already free, Claire wiped her new knife clean on the leg of her pants and jammed it behind her belt. She flexed the regrown skin and tissue of her right hand and refused to talk about who had trapped her. They were zero and two now. She'd get her next time.

…

...

It was snowing in September when they met for a third time. Not freakish weather, but a weather freak was the cause. Claire stood high above the streets of Chicago on a rooftop and watched as cars and drivers, unprepared for the sudden storm, slid wildly and struggled for control. Her breath clouded in the nippy air and distantly she could hear emergency sirens blaring.

An almost smile made her cheek twitch. This was as close to peaceful she'd felt since the world learned about people with abilities.

The storm would clear in a few hours, she knew, and the city's late summer heat could return. Mr. Freeze was no longer a threat under heavily sedation in the back of a nondescript van on its way to New Jersey. Her team keeping watch the whole trip. This was an enhanced human too dangerous even for the camps. He was in for a prolonged stay at the medical testing facility.

"You must really be drinking the kool-aid these days if mayhem in the streets makes you happy," a voice said behind her. "My kind of girl."

Claire turned and saw Elle walking toward her. Seemingly ready for the sudden change in temperature, she wore a long wool coat over a dark sweater.

Claire had her gun in hand before thought told her to reach for it. "Stop right there. By the right of the Protection of Humanity Act I'm placing you under arrest. Show me your hands and submit."

Elle smiled slow and pulled her bare hands from the coat's pockets even slower. Languidly she raised them to shoulder height. "But, officer, I'm unarmed." She wiggled her fingers for emphasis.

"You're never unarmed." Claire transferred the gun to one hand and reached into her back pocket with the other. The gun's handle was already warm and slick in her palm. Her finger itched along the length of the trigger. Elle had been rogue for a long time, and Claire would relish finally bringing her in for processing.

She pulled a syringe from her pocket, yanked the cap off with her teeth, and threw it on the ground between them. "Pick it up and inject it in your neck."

Elle didn't move. "You know, I never saw you as a top. Switch much?"

"Inject it into your neck or I'll shoot you."

"Do you really want our dance to end so soon?"

"We're not dancing."

Elle lowered her hands slightly. "Of course we are. It's what we've been doing since I threw you out that window."

Claire shifted her stance and tightened her hold on the gun. "That might be your idea of foreplay, but not mine."

"No? So what kind do you like?"

She took aim. "I'm not kidding, Elle. Pick up the syringe."

Elle looked disappointed. "Lesson the second, hotshot: never use a target's name when threatening them. Names give people power over you."

Claire never saw the charge build. One moment the snow was fluttering down around them and the next a wall of electricity slammed into her. She heard the gun fire before her eardrums popped but didn't know if she hit Elle with the wayward shot. Fingers of power crawled along her skin, searing and tearing. The force of the attack threw her back.

The suddenness and the intensity of it surprised her. Apparently time away from the Company hadn't dulled Elle's edge. Spasms shook her and Claire had no choice but to ride them out. Inside she could almost feel her ability compete with Elle's. As though trying to heal even faster than the other could inflict damage.

It gave her a rush but the idea that their abilities were somehow compatible nauseated her.

Elle stepped forward with hands extended. Ten bolts of lightning arced from her fingers and raked across Claire's body. She grunted as they impacted. The same numbness that stood in for pain now echoed through her. She registered damage and heard bones break but didn't feel any of the human satisfaction of agony.

Just as suddenly as it started, Elle ended the attack. Around them fallen snow had melted into puddles and a low cover of steam wafted over the roof's edge. "Now that is a mistake you won't make again," she said proudly. "You're welcome."

Entirely healed, Claire lunged forward and grabbed for Elle's ankles. The gun had skidded wide in the attack, but that didn't matter to her anymore. Claire had brought people in barehanded before. She yanked and Elle went down on her back hard.

As Claire wrestled for better leverage, Elle twisted and kicked Claire's shoulder. The joint popped and that injury would have slowed any other operative down. Claire climbed over the pinned woman and straddled her hips. She locked a hand around Elle's wrist and held it in a puddle of melted snow to prevent any fireworks.

"You're getting sloppy in your retirement," she taunted, jerking her shoulder back into place.

Elle glanced at her submerged wrist. "You're getting better at your new life."

It was Claire's turn to lean in and sneer. "Damn straight I am."

"But you're not there yet, and you know it."

Claire frowned at the other girl's tone and felt the press of something sharp into the hand holding Elle's down. She pulled back and saw the syringe bobbing between her middle and ring finger. "You…little…"

"You did tell me to pick it up."

The drug took hold quickly and Elle easily rolled Claire over and reversed their positions. Malice now gone from her face, Elle smiled down at her. Claire felt the world slipping away. She would have traded a lot in that moment for a bullet and gun.

Like the friends they could have been in another world, Elle touched her face gently. Craziness filled her blue eyes and Claire knew that was the secret to the edge the older girl always held in their confrontations. It was what completed her Company training.

Claire knew Pinehearst ate parts of her soul away and wondered when she finally dragged Elle to an internment camp if she would be as far gone. She wondered if the world was happier seen through insane eyes. There was still a tiny part inside that was scared to find out.

Elle kissed her again. Deep and slow with the knowledge she couldn't fight back. Claire could taste salt and marveled at how cold Elle felt against her. Her last thoughts before everything faded away was about what the world had forced her to become.

Elle was gone when Claire finally came to. The sun was shining and it was twenty degrees warmer. The snow was a decreasing memory. They were zero and three now. She'd get her next time.

…

...

After Costa Verde, after the assassination of President Petrelli, in an empty office of the Pinehearst building was where they met for a fourth time. Claire stood behind the unused desk looking out the room's massive window. Across the river the city's lights illuminated the night. The veins and arteries of highways entering and leaving the city were empty.

There was a curfew, she knew.

Military police were keeping people indoors in the wake of the explosion out west and the death of the president. In only hours the world had gotten much worse.

Claire didn't react when she saw Elle reflected behind her in the window. The part of her trained as a hunter of enhanced humans craved instantly for a gun. But after Peter, and Peter again, she didn't have the energy to feed that particular beast. Instead she stood calmly and watched Elle watch her from the doorway.

She wondered offhandedly how Elle had made it into Pinehearst unnoticed, but shrugged it away. Over the past four years Claire had certainly made it into many highly guarded facilities. Elle had been a good teacher.

They remained in silent stalemate for a long while. Claire wondered just how messed up the world was that she found Elle's presence slightly comforting. She debated whether she should mention Peter—either of them—to Elle. Probably not. He was one of her deeper crushes and a sore subject for both of them right now.

"How are you?" Elle broke the standoff first.

Claire looked back to the glowing cityscape. She didn't have a team anymore—even Daphne running to her family couldn't move fast enough to live. As of tomorrow she'd have a new boss in the White House and new laws to enforce to protect humans from people like her and Elle.

"I get the first lesson now."

Elle hugged her then. Walked up behind her and hugged her like they were old friends meeting for coffee. Claire stiffened for a moment, thought about the syringe she always kept in her back pocket, and then relaxed into backward embrace.

Elle rested her chin on Claire's shoulder and shared the view of the city. "I'm going away for a little while," she said. "I'm leaving the country while I still can. Things are going to get bad."

Claire nodded. Before tonight she had suspected Elle was already across the border. Things were going to get _much_ worse for people like them—it was her job to make sure they did.

"You could come with."

Claire turned to face her. "No, I can't. This is what we are and that's not going to change—no matter what some people might think."

"Yeah," Elle drawled, linking her hands behind Elle's head. "I learned that a long time ago."

Claire searched electric blue eyes. "So what is lesson the third? What was so important for me to learn that you had to walk into Pinehearst to teach me?"

Elle shook her head. "I was never able to master number three. Once you do, then you'll know how to catch me for good if you want to."

"What is it?"

"That what we do doesn't always have to hurt."

Elle tipped her head then, waiting. Ideas and schemes were alive in her eyes, but she held back waiting for Claire to take the next step in her evolution.

Gripping Elle's arms, Claire walked her backward until she was against the empty desk. She thought about the syringe in her pocket and the gun in the holster at her waist. Elle was an insane terrorist with a deadly ability—and it was a safe bet that she had helped Peter in his campaign against the nation over the years.

Because Elle understood the craziness they surrounded themselves with, because she tried to teach a rule she couldn't use to save herself just to spare another, Claire kissed her. Soft, wet, and easy. Elle's hands tangled in her hair and Claire waited for burning sparks and crackling bolts that never came.

A part of her wanted to force the older girl down, take what she wanted, and pay her back for the bloodplay of their first kiss. She held back and felt Elle do the same. Buttons were undone instead of ripped open. The only violence was when the cup of pens on the desk clattered to the floor, sending bics rolling.

Making love was a corny and overused term that only wide eyed cheerleaders believed in. It had no place in the vocabularies of the two most feared killers in the world. If it did though this was how Claire imagined it would feel like.

Somehow Claire had always figured she and Elle would fight and fuck their first time together. Breaking furniture and beating each other senseless until there was nothing left but to come screaming the other's name.

That, she thought slipping her fingers between Elle's legs, was still true even without the mass demolition. At the height of her passion she still knew that Costa Verde and Nathan were gone. When the aftershocks shook her, Claire remembered that Elle knew what it was like to lose a father.

…

...

Claire woke up as orange-yellow light was starting to push over the horizon. The entire office warmed with it. Sometime during the night she and Elle had moved to the leather couch set in the corner of the room.

Claire kept her body still and moved only her head to avoid making noise against the soft grain. She saw Elle collecting clothes and getting ready to leave. Claire hesitated for a moment before closing her eyes and feigning sleep.

She listened as Elle stepped into her shoes and walked from the office. It was her last chance to stop the fugitive this time around, Claire knew. Grab the gun buried in her clothes, end these silly lessons, and make the world a safer place.

She paused at the idea of the world as a better place.

"Goodbye, Elle," Claire said instead, knowing that uttering a target's real name gave away power.

They were one and three now. She'd get her next time.

**End**


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